Director of Learning @LuceoSports | FRM draft & dev consultant @Sportsaptitude & Head of NBA Scouting @Draftexpress | I build learning solutions for basketball
Joined February 2011
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This is a methodology I developed over the course of my career. No matter if you are a pro or not, understanding development context improves prediction greatly.
Eric A Weiss retweeted
So the thing about the Celtics movement is that it's extremely fun until teams get physical and bog all of that down. Went to Get action and all they got was denials.
Eric A Weiss retweeted
Interesting early relationship between the fastest-playing teams and offensive rating (ORtg in parentheses)
1. Bulls (26th)
2. Hawks (16th)
3. Heat (18th)
4. Pelicans (19th)
5. Bucks (28th)
6. Blazers (3rd)
7. Kings (25th)
8. Pacers (22nd)
9. Jazz (30th)
10. Clippers (20th)
These blindside help defensive forays are something I’m going to start tracking. BOS loves to send a “pass rusher” at a player with his back turned.
Would have like to see Jordan Walsh recover more aggressively here. Instead he & Queta have a moment of hesitancy, leaving the baseline open. Walsh should have forced the counter back inside.
211
These quick flares man. Absolute terror for a ball watching defender who’s lost the plot for a split second.
Like a boxing match these little body blows really take out the legs eventually as well as diverting focus from help defenders.
Absolute textbook demonstration on the value of timing when choosing to - or not to - initiate contact. Look at the dance between Embiid & Robinson.
Game of inches…
Celtics desperately need a guard who has some type of physical matchup advantage.
Just really hard for them to gain the lane against quality defense.
Devin Carter’s burst/length would be a useful contingency to have.
Eric A Weiss retweeted
Joe on NBA relationships: "All 30 teams, it's not boy scouts, all of us sitting around & happy go lucky ... this isn't camp. We're going after something highly competitive & stressful ... with that, comes conflict ... you have a plethora of experiences."
"They're humans."
Eric A Weiss retweeted
This is NOT a travel. Can you non basketball people PLEASE stop tweeting and talking about basketball. Just watch it and think you know what is going on and then go to bed and wake up and go to your normal job.
Eric A Weiss retweeted
Steph Curry’s trainer explains why Curry uses an underwater treadmill to get in extra conditioning
“By going underwater, it provides less pressure on the joints so we can continue to do some fitness, get him moving, do more than we would on court without the pounding that is required for an athlete who's been going for 17 years. Typically, if we go rep by rep, every rep, he'll likely have a higher heart rate or a similar peak, but the recovery window, it tends to become less of a recovery every rep. If his rest period is active, which it is, or if it's challenging”
“That recovery period, if you see a really good drop in heart rate, that shows an indication that he's recovered or aerobic fitness. But if he's passively resting or he has a longer rest period, that helps. But this is a 1 to 1 ratio. And he's still running in between. So we're likely going to get a similar spike, 150, 160, maybe 65 near the end. But his heart rate before he starts his next rep is probably going to be a little bit higher because he's still trying to recover from the workload”
via @StephenCurry30
Eric A Weiss retweeted
Talked about Nolan Traore for the Nets on the podcast tonight with @JLEdwardsIII because I think we're quickly entering a world where he is among the most underrated young guys in the league based off of what he's doing this year.
Neemias Queta has put in WORK on his pliability. Just continues to unlock fluidity & chain very intriguing moves together.
Eric A Weiss retweeted
we are well past the point of ‘if sam presti wants your guy, maybe stop and think about that’
Eric A Weiss retweeted
What's not talked about enough as everyone loves the idea of conceptual offense, is that most teams do not have 5 players on the floor that they want making reads/decisions, etc.
Every team needs to have a blend of Sets, Triggers/Actions, Conceptual Flow and depending on overall team IQ and skill level that blend looks different
Steph Curry wants less random basketball
On what Steve Kerr is installing:
“Less random basketball and offense. Trying to get more organized and more pattern-based.”
Chaos can create a shot
Structure makes EVERYBODY better
Have we been celebrating too much freestyle offense and not enough organization?
(Via @jinthirty 🎥)
Eric A Weiss retweeted
I asked Snyder for his thoughts on how ATL utilizes motion to punish defenders
He talked about finding vs targeting mismatches, the difference in scenarios that result in structured ways to attack defenders and why DHOs/Handoffs/Cuts are a more effective action for the Hawks
Eric A Weiss retweeted
The first thing LaMelo Ball did when he got off the plane in Minnesota was ask the PR staffer meeting him what their name was. By the next day he knew everyone's name.
That story comes from Tim Connelly, who runs the Timberwolves front office. He also said that before the trade, his people called LaMelo's old teammates and coaches in Lithuania and Australia, and the answer they kept getting was that the guy has "no bad days."
Fast forward a few months and Jon Krawczynski, who's covered the Wolves for years, says LaMelo knows the name of literally everyone in the building, from the janitor all the way up to the head of basketball operations.
That's way harder than it sounds, and there's actual science on why.
Back in 1987, psychologists showed people a bunch of faces paired with words, and they used the same word two different ways. One face was a baker, and another belonged to a guy whose last name was Baker. People remembered the job about twice as often.
When you hear someone's a baker, your brain instantly pulls up flour and an apron and a 4am alarm, and all of that gives the word something to stick to. A last name is just a sound sitting there by itself, so it slides right out. Add in the fact that when someone tells you their name, you're usually already thinking about what you're going to say back, and most names never get saved at all. That's why you blank five seconds later and feel like a jerk.
Now think about it from the other person's side. Your own name is the one word your brain won't ignore, even in your sleep. Researchers in France played lists of names to people while they were asleep, and their brains reacted to their own name in a way they didn't react to anyone else's.
So watch this clip with all that in mind. LaMelo is walking a back hallway, greeting staffers by name one at a time, and at least one of them has a handshake that's only theirs. Every person he stops for is hearing the one word their brain is built to catch, from a guy on a max contract who could have just kept walking.
Remembering someone's name means you were actually listening to them, right at the moment most people are busy thinking about themselves.
